Fade Away
by Sophia Bee
Summary: uploading some of my old Veronica Mars fics - Veronica is disappearing - this is one of my most favorite stories I've written


Veronica's becoming invisible. If she lifts up her hand and looks at it at the right angle she'll see through layers of skin and muscle all the way down to the bone. Then her father says something to her, something as random as asking her to take out the garbage or if she wants to watch a movie that night, and she realizes he can still see her.

She's healed since that night. Bright pink skin has grown over the areas of her hands that were burned as she clawed her way through the fire. She can't feel the bump on her head with her hand, can't feel the sharp stab pain as she presses against it with her fingers. She feels a strange sense of loss. Her aches and pains are some of the last connections she felt to the real world.

Lilly is gone. She used to haunt her dreams, lurking on the edges of her consciousness, asking her over and over, the same question.

Why did you leave me?

Now Lilly knows Veronica never left her so she's left Veronica, floating away on a sea of blue, the scent of water lilies lingering in the air and Veronica wakes up from the dream with a gasp. She waits the next night, then the next but Lilly never comes back.

It wasn't supposed to end like this.

She goes back to school, skittering on the edges of the hallways, head down, never looking anyone in the eye. Wallace says she's become strange. She doesn't tell him that she's become nothing. There's only emptiness left, a hole where she once had purpose and meaning. The counselor calls her into her office and Veronica smiles politely and says what she thinks they want to hear and makes promises to tell someone if she ever needs help.

At night she counts the ways she could hurt herself, listing them one after another in her head, adding new ways. She's almost reached one hundred.

Her dad is worried. She can tell by the way his brow knits whenever she walks into the room, the way his words are carefully chosen when she's around. Alicia leans in the doorway of her bedroom one night, her face washed with concern.

Veronica lies to her too. Years of practice have made her very good at making sure no one knows the truth.

The lies have become easy. Slipping off the tongue with simplicity. She never tells them that she's fading away into nothingness. They wouldn't understand anyway.

They give him only the best pills. Strange octagon shaped little blue pills that make everything feel just that much better. Logan chases them with vodka because it potentiates their effect, magnifies the soft cotton that fills the edges of his vision.

He plays with matches, striking each one against the side of the box, watching with fascination as the flame burns down the wooden stick until it stings at the tips of his fingers. He tosses their burned remains on the cement by the pool, a small pile of charred sticks. He wonders what it would feel like to burn to death, to let the flame lick across his skin, melt down to his bones.

Someday he might get up the courage to ask her. She's the only person he knows who has ever come close.

Trina watches him from a distance, sitting in the lounger, smoking one cigarette after another. Inhale slowly, exhale smoke that drifts through the air and tickles Logan's nostrils. She stabs the butts into the expensive ceramic ashtray Lynn had bought, an exclusive from some famous designer in New York. Logan thinks it would be funny if it were that ashtray, the one heavy enough to crush the dreams and ambitions of a seventeen-year-old slut.

Fucking bitch. Whore. Cunt.

Logan thinks he'll never have enough words to describe Lilly Kane.

He doesn't leave the house. Pizza boxes start to pile up, brought to the house by curious pizza boys who crane their necks to get a glimpse of the mansion where the movie star turned killer lived. Logan likes to snarl at them, bark like a dog; build the urban myth that his father's exploits have driven him over the edge.

He doesn't know the difference between myth and reality any more.

Summer fades to fall but there is no discernable season change in Neptune. Nothing feels different and the twisted black burned matches continue to pile up next to the pool.

"Someday you're going to burn the house down." Trina finally says one day, her voice flat, emotionless. It's the first thing she's said in days, carefully crafted to keep him from hearing the fear that lurks behind her words

Logan turns and looks at her. He can't see her eyes hidden behind large sunglasses that cover almost half her face. A cigarette dangles from her fingertips. Her mouth is starting to get fine lines around the edges. Her dark roots are starting to show. A highball sweats on the side table next to her lounger. Logan notices she's wearing something different from the last time her saw her. He wonders how many days have gone by but then he doesn't bother to figure it out.

"Fuck you."

He strikes another against the side of the box, smells the sulfur it releases into he air, watches the bright orange flame lick down the match.

There's one person who will tell her the truth.

Somehow Veronica finds herself lingering outside the gates of that house. The media is no longer stalking outside, hoping to get a glimpse of the grieving family, just one photo for the tabloids to splash on their front pages. On the curb are the remains of an alter carefully built by a supporter, complete with a picture of Aaron and banner proclaiming his innocence. Its sun bleached, tattered remains rustle with the slight wind that blows off the ocean. The grass around the once immaculate driveway has become dried and brown after a summer of intense heat and no gardener. Veronica thinks that Lynn would be horrified, even in her bloated, rotting state, at what has become of her beloved mansion.

She looks at her hands, looks through to the bone, shining and white, and even parts of that are starting to disappear. How long before there's nothing left?

She's tried searching the Internet but there are no documented cases of a person disappearing. There are plenty of cases where someone has been taken, kidnapped, never to be seen again, but no one has reported slowly fading away.

Everyone still looks at her like she's all there but Veronica knows they just need to see her in the right light to see that she's become translucent around the edges.

Taking a deep breath she puts her hand on the large iron gate and pushes. To her surprise it starts to swing inward with a slight creak from disuse. She takes one step then another, moving toward the one person who will look at her and know for sure whether or not she's still there. Because she feels like she's just partly there but she doesn't trust herself any more to know for sure.

At first he thinks it's an illusion. A creation of his foggy brain, better dreaming through chemistry that has somehow conjured up his deepest desires. He blinks in the late afternoon sun and runs another match down the side of the box, listening for the hiss as it catches fire.

It does nothing.

His hand shakes as he runs it down the side of the box again. Still nothing. Finally he takes the entire box and throws it across the deck, matches scattering left and right as the box sails through the air.

It's her voice that makes him realize that she's real.

It's the same voice she had the day she told him why finding Lilly's killer was so important.

I loved Lilly too.

He remembered how she'd pointed at her chest and how she'd watched him, eyes filled with pain, daring him to challenge her, to tell her she had no right. Daring him to find another way to hurt her, another verbal jab that would go straight to her heart and rip it out again.

He couldn't. For the first time he'd seen they had something in common. They'd both loved Lilly. They'd both been betrayed by her.

Now she was standing in front of him, face pale, swaying slightly as they stared at each other.

"I…" Veronica started then her voice trailed off. She watched him, looking for his permission to continue, something to let her know that if she wasn't welcomed, she at least wasn't going to be sent away with more hurtful words.

Logan turned toward her, still squatting on the cement.

"What is it, Veronica?"

He tried to make his words drip with the anger that he still felt toward her. They fell short, crashing somewhere in the space between them.

"It's just that I…I need to know…"

She steps toward him.

"You see, I think I'm…."

Another step.

"I'm disappearing."

Logan's forehead wrinkles as he digests her words.

"No one will tell me the truth." Veronica continues. "I don't think they want to see it. But you…I know you'll tell me…."

She holds her hands and out and Logan's eyes go to them. She turns them, angling them in the sunshine and when she gets it just right he sees what she's talking about. Her hands are fading around the edges, only a faint translucent outline of her fingers is left.

Veronica Mars really is disappearing.

"Fuck."

Everything that has built up between them crumbles and he steps toward her, takes her hand in his, runs his fingers across the skin on its back. She feels like she's there but when he looks down he can see the white flash of bone and even that is starting to fade.

Veronica knew Logan was the only one who would understand what was happening to her.

She stays with him. Calls her dad and tells him she is going away for a while and not to worry. Trina glances up but says nothing when Logan leads Veronica through the kitchen, his hand clutching hers as if she might float away.

The house is some sort of time warp and soon she loses track of what day it is, what time it is. She sits in a chair by the pool, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Logan squats at the edge, lighting match after match. There's no sound, just the occasional birdcall or gust of wind. No music, no television, barely even words.

Trina sits in the living room, still smoking, still silent, until one day she's not there and there's a note hastily scrawled on a yellow legal pad in blue ink.

Can't stand the silence.

Logan burns the note, watching as charred pieces of paper float upward then drift down and land in the pool, strange shaped black lilies floating in the brilliant blue chlorinated water until they sink and drift toward the filter.

Veronica is fading more and more. Logan tells her that she's getting harder and harder to see, especially in the dim evening light. That's why she wears the blanket even when she's not cold. It's so he can always see her.

They lie together every night; Veronica curled tightly into Logan's side, her hand resting on his arm or across his bare chest, a reminder that she's still there.

Every morning she gets up and takes off the pajamas she usually sleeps in. She stands in front of the mirror and looks at what's left of her reflection. She's starting to be able to see the wall behind her as she gazes at her image. She walks through the house in the early morning light, a wisp of a figure, so faded that some people might mistake her for a ghost. Veronica isn't convinced there's much between her and the undead who walk the earth looking for rest.

By the time Logan is up she's put her clothes on and the blanket is back around her shoulders, shrouding her head. He kisses her on the cheek and fumbles for her hand. She wraps her arms around his neck and whispers in his ear that she'll never leave him.

Logan will never forget the day Veronica finally disappears completely. He wakes up with the late morning light filling his room and reaches out to feel an empty cold space next to him.

He jerks up and looks around. Habit even though he knows he won't see her. She's been mostly gone for weeks now, a hunched, shrouded figure drifting around the house. He sees her blanket lying in a heap on the ground.

"Veronica?"

His voice sounds strange in the stillness, echoing through the empty room.

He doesn't bother to put clothes on, just runs through the house calling her name. Finally he collapses on the couch, his face wet with tears, her name a hoarse whisper.

She's gone.

He likes to think she just faded away, finally found the peace that had been stolen from her when she solved Lilly's murder. It's the only explanation that makes the pain bearable.

Logan stands up and walks to the sliding glass doors. He pushes them open and walks to the edge of the pool. On the ground is one of his boxes of matches, half burned, slightly damp from the morning air. He pulls a match out and strikes it several times against the soft cardboard until it lights. He holds it out and wonders if the tiny light from the flame might reveal her, standing in a corner, smiling at him, telling him she's finally let him go.

Logan blows out the flame and drops the burnt match to the ground. He turns back toward the house and wonders if the gun his dad kept hidden in the recesses of his closet is still loaded.

She doesn't know that the only place he can go now is to follow her.


End file.
